


The Lonely Places of Your World

by steampoweredgal



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Dubious Morality, Emily's first crush, F/M, Low Chaos (Dishonored), M/M, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 05:57:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steampoweredgal/pseuds/steampoweredgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corvo escapes Coldridge with minor hearing problems and deep scars that make it difficult to follow his own moral code on his quest to restore Emily to the throne. His princess is maturing too fast and too unpredictably to soothe his demons as she once did, and the shadows no longer seem so frightening.</p>
<p>Will include dark behaviour, inappropriate crushes, redemption and falling from grace, partially mute Corvo, and straying from canon material. Chapter notes will contain appropriate tag warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If you won't marry mother

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings will go here when they become needed but I don't want to be crucified yet  
> Also! I'm going to do research for sign language and hearing loss to improve this soon, because these are my head canons for Corvo. Help is appreciated : )
> 
> Chapter 1: Prologue and Mission One

The first time she had asked, she had been but a child. Corvo had cringed at the innocent question, but had not had the sense to outright tell her no. His winding answer of signs was cut off by Campbell, calling for his attention from behind Sokolov's canvas. By the time Anton had translated a reply for him, and griped to the Lord Protector about how he despised painting these pompous, ugly aristocrats, the Princess had already run ahead. A half formed 'I don't think it wise,' was her response. At the age, Emily was wilful, not wise.

Corvo had followed the path to the courtyard, nodding to Geoff Curnow, who had given his report during the game of hide and seek. His legs had felt weak, finally climbing the steps to his Empress's side once more. So many months of diplomatic missions, with hardly a letter between them, since couriers could not find him swiftly enough. Jessamine had taken to copying her letters, she had confided in him before his departure. That way, he had to return to her, to read the words that did not reach him. He had missed his fierce, kind Empress.

Hiram had brushed by him with the furious air of an arrogant man not getting his way. He had been ignored by both Corvo and young Emily, shouting to her mother the news of his return. Corvo had delivered the letter straight away, so he could take his time saying his hellos after. He knew how her eyes would follow his signing hands, with Corvo speaking softly here and there, as he did only when necessary. His girls loved the rough, unused timber of his voice, Jessamine had said before... But the moment of reunion never came.

Where have all the guards gone? Who sent them away?

Mother, what are they doing on the roof?

Emily, get behind me!

Corvo had drawn sword and pistol and fired upon the first attacker before they even landed. A blink later, there were three more on the gazebo with them. The dim recognition of black magic was there, but too faint to change quickly enough how he fought.

A man in Overseer-red appeared as Corvo thrashed in white mist. He stalked toward Corvo's girls, shoved Emily down, seized Jessamine by her throat. An angry snarl died on Corvo's lips as a blade ran her through. Emily bit her captor on the arm, but then was vanishing out of sight across the gatehouse roof. His scream caught in his voice. Words would not come.

The ground struck him hard on the shoulder when he dropped. Corvo scrambled to her, blood seeping everywhere, over the letter about blockades and plague rats. Words would not come, not even her name. Horror blanched his face as he gathered Jessamine into his arms, needing to hold her more than to sign. No! There was too much to tell her, too much she still needed to do. Corvo tried again. Her hands were too weak to touch him back, but he felt her trying. He didn't take her hands, even as blood filled her teeth. His were too covered in blood. He pressed on both sides of her wound, felt it gushing beneath his palms.

Her last word was his name. Corvo didn't manage a response. He doubled over in grief, preparing himself to chase down her assassins. He would go to the Abbey and learn how to fight this magic, avenge her, save Emily. Hiram Burrows and Thaddeus Campbell appeared above him. Even with tears on his face, and Jessamine cradled over his heart, they accused... And beneath his grieving Corvo knew /they/ had done this. Words did not come. A paid guard struck him in the temple. Blackness. Dreams.

He dreamt of Emily in Coldridge. He couldn't hear her voice, her laugh. Corvo never heard speech in his dreams anymore, not even screaming. Those were reserved for the waking. A mute torturer burned and beat a mute prisoner, empty of compassion or kinship. Corvo glimpsed ink under one of his gloves when the heat of the iron made the room itself sweat. The burns infected. He was given cursory treatment.

They were going to execute him. He had night terrors of the chopping block. He suspected they would use that instead of the guillotine. More personal, for a crime that struck at the heart of fair Dunwall. A jagged axe, not a clean blade. Delayed agony as the head outlived the body. He woke in cold sweats.

It had been a year since his last spoken words. Corvo didn't even try in prison. On his last day... Maybe. He could tell the dignitaries... But Burrows would attend. He would carefully select the invitations. No, he would not utter breath for them.

Bread that bordered fresh arrived the night before his execution. Corvo tore into it just to breathe in the smell, stomach turning at the thought of consuming something not rotten. He nibbled it all away anyhow. Beneath was a note, a key.

He slipped out and took up a blade, swiped the coins from the table in spite. The first guard he choked, dragging him back into the shadows as the other two talked of his head being chopped off. Dog fights. Accurate. The man in the cell next to where he dropped the body crouched next to him, arms through the bars. "That one used to spit in my food. I hated that guy. Kill a few guards for me."

Corvo's mouth twisted into something ugly. He covered the guard's mouth and pressed the blade upwards into him, slowly. Flesh gave jaggedly. The unconscious man woke and struggled, but his friends patrolling the courtyard ignored screams from here. Most of death row screamed eventually.

He wrenched his blade clean and handed the man in the cell next to his the key from his tray. /Wait ten minutes/ he signed. The thug shrugged. "I don't speak hands. Send me a signal, an' I'll bust these guys out."

Whether they escaped their cells or not, Corvo would. He only cared that some of the men Hiram imprisoned caused him some trouble to make up for accusing him falsely. Maybe other innocents rotted here too. Maybe. Small victories.

The urge to sow chaos still drove him as he stalked through the prison, walking in scarcely concealing shadows, sword dripping red. It was almost a dare. Come see me. Challenge me. Give me an excuse.  
It was too easy to walk past the first pair, to rob the walkway key off another. He took the clockwork device, whatever coins lay about, and paused, to listen to Burrows on an audiograph going on about his damning confession Corvo wouldn't sign. He took the audiograph. Prison had apparently made him whimsical.

He found no challenge choking out the three guarding the door. He gagged down a plague elixir and climbed the pipes to see who waited on the other side. Two. He dumped their bodies in the dumpster and set the bomb. It tore the dumpster to shreds. Thinking of his promise to the cell mate below, likely hacking his way towards an unforgiving steel door, Corvo decided that that was just as well. He'd killed a couple of guards. Singed, ears ringing, he dove into the water. Something, possibly his eardrum, burst. His hearing went wonky, throwing off his balance in the echoing sewer.

A man named Samuel met him on the beach. Covered in rot and sewer water, incendiary bolts loaded into his gun from Bottle Street traps, he thunked into the boat. The man shrugged off his silence and talked for both of them on the water, scratching his grey mutton chops. Something about his frank honesty was refreshing and homely. It pulled Corvo inch by inch away from the need for slaughter. It wouldn't save Jessamine. When he signed a thank you, Samuel smiled back. "It's a pleasure to be a part of this, Master Corvo. There are important people waiting to meet you. I'm just along for the ride. We all want that little girl safe and sound, and you proved innocent."

Innocent? Corvo blinked back his overwhelming surprise. He told Samuel the story in short bursts when the water didn't command his attention, and the old sailor believed him. Weight in his shoulders, burrowed in by torment and silence, lifted. He met Admiral Havelock and Lord Pendleton (the younger, more respectful of the brood of nobles) with hope that things would finally change. Even their dying city seemed more full of light as he met each of the others, making signs for their names, so they would always be able to understand him greeting them.

That night, he found himself in the Void.


	2. This is My Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mission 2  
> Corvo visits the shrine after dealing with Campbell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Differences in plot should be more visible each chapter from now on. No warnings.

The world felt different the moment he woke. The ringing in his ear was gone, and his burns felt like nothing but old scabs. Purple light filtered in through the walls, seeming the bathe him in something ethereal - something holy. Corvo twisted the doorknob, and knew he /must/ somehow be awake. He heard whales. They were signing. Mournful cries drifted in the air. He never dreamed of sound, only images. The ground under his feel was solid, and his boots scuffed the cobblestone, even as a street fragment and a river lamp drifted by side by side, oscillating each other. Corvo climbed the steps and was swept into a living night sky: inky blackness and roving stars. Within it formed Him.

He spoke.

He spoke with a human voice, but Corvo felt the Leviathan beneath, woven with whale song and night. His knees hit the ground, trying to distance himself from that voice. The way he uttered Corvo's name was familiar and terrifying, but the Lord Protector felt no danger, for all of that power focusing on him. The Abbey's preachings echoed in his thoughts. Preying on the weak, every hour, every moment of men's loves, corrupting, stealing, influencing. Corvo was bound by folded arms and black eyes. What the Abbey could not teach was His profoundness. The endlessness of His eyes. It became clear why the Empire swore by them.

"The Empress is dead, her precious daughter Emily lost somewhere in the city, and you will play a pivotal role in the days to come. For this, I have chosen you, and drawn you into the Void."

Not a dream, then, but a vision. Corvo still met those black eyes with growing reverence. He gasped as gold and ink sprawled over the back of his hand, branding him a student of the forbidden arts. He traced the Mark, squeezed his hand. The Void pulsed beneath his skin. It was as subtle a placement as his cheek. Corvo wasn't an Everyman practitioner, but he had never sought out heresy either.

"Come find me," whispered the Outsider.

Corvo ran, following that vanishing night. The path seemed straight enough, but the gaps were as wide as city streets between floating cobblestones. He leapt anyway, and plummeted. His knees struck the ground a moment later on path instead of faint blue sun, miles below. He couldn't look down and into it for long. It was the Void - of the Outsider in His more pure form. Surely gazing into it so long would only warp his soul (he was beyond fixing already. Why tempt fate, and invite madness?).

He thought of the assassins who had come for Emily and Jessamine. They had been one place, then another in instants. The span of a blink. Corvo squeezed his Mark. It glowed white on his hand, and he envisioned the stones across from him. A white beam appeared.

Corvo Blinked.

Falling and running, skidding to a halt only over Jessamine's phantom body (he could not touch her, could not save her), he pursued the man with oil for eyes. Corvo threw himself over building ledges to get to that voice again. The magic ran dry eventually, dropping him harshly on the stones. A sip of blue elixir pulled the Void back into him again, and the Outsider materialized once more.

He gave Corvo the Heart, with his sweet Jessamine's voice trapped within. Corvo wanted to Blink back to her body and see if her chest had been carved open to dig her out of it. He signed a mournful apology to her, and used the dials of the Heart and the singing she heard in the world to find the second Rune.

Past visions of Emily being held by angry men and fiends on stilts massacring people, Corvo passed through the Void. This was Dunwall, so different from the place he had left more than a year ago.

He took up the Rune from its shrine and traced the black lines. This time, when the Outsider appeared, Corvo could feel the Void beginning to slip away. Though the Outsider promised to be watching him, he reached out, trying to hold onto the Void a little longer. He woke with a jolt, a man who had found God. The Heart lay pillowed in his hand. When he stowed her carefully in his jacket, the singing dimmed, his ear returned to its state of damage, and the Mark on the back of his hand thrummed rhythmically.  
He went to the window and Blinked. In a burst, he was upon the rooftop of the workshop. Corvo had to find other shrines. He would learn these new powers, and unlike the whaler assassins, he would use them to save. Six months ago, he had been ready to go to the Overseers to learn how to hunt them all down and massacre them, but now he needed these powers to save Emily. He justified himself with virtuous motives, but it was still magic. Using it was intoxicating and frightening.

Corvo climbed down through the workshop, bidding Piero a good morning in sign. He joined the Admiral for beer over breakfast as they discussed their first moves. Wallace polished silver only Pendleton used as Lydia brought them the meals he had prepared out of potted river life. Standard fare these days, but the most delicious he had eaten all year. Lydia's flirting made him smile broadly, all the way to the docks, where another blond woman waited.

Branding Thaddeus Campbell was beyond satisfying. The Heretic's Brand condemned him to slow, painful death, devoid of even a kind word spoken to him, the rest of his life. Being robbed of his voice, and blamed for Jessamine's death because of this man piping up out of turn, he felt it a fair trade. His head would have rolled this morning, had Campbell had his way. The irony wasn't lost on him either. One heretic branding another, in a place even less easy to disguise than his hand.

Corvo left him strapped to that chair, the branding iron resting across his lap, and used his newfound Dark Vision to navigate his way from the room unseen, pockets heavy with Everyman secrets and Abbey coin. The alarms began to sound by the time he escaped the window. Before going back to Samuel, he acted on another instinct, following the Heart back to Bottle Street...

In Granny Rags's back alley, he found purple drapes spun with gold, the Void wisping through the rough planks used to erect a shrine of wood and barbed wire and cloth. Sharp, beautiful, otherworldly, just like the Outsider he had met in his vision. He knelt before taking up the Rune. It didn't feel right locking his knees to stay upright, especially not once words like waves submerged him.

First, before even greeting him, the Outsider warned him of Granny Rags. Corvo felt a flash of guilt for helping her with those thugs (but it had been the right thing to do, and he had seen her Blink. She had His gifts, too. Corvo wondered if the /Outsider/ was the different choice she had made). Something about the encounter, and the way the Outsider spoke of being interested in his choices, struck Corvo a funny way, but his hands were full of Runes, and too unsteady from seeing his new God to form an argument.

He used the Runes at his disposal to acquire another power, one Granny Rags took interest in. She offered him more presents, if he used this gift to do her more favours. Corvo struggled with the idea of poisoning men he did not know, but a gang like Bottle Street had the resources to cure themselves, and the gang was reputed for its rough treatment of innocent citizens. Besides... the Heart could feel another Rune, inside Galvani's place. The temptation was enough that Corvo possessed a rat and slipped inside.

There was always more than one way to accomplish an end. He dumped the rat viscera from the doctor's into a barrel of whiskey instead of the elixir still. Slackjaw could make his own conclusions. He returned to Rags, collected the Rune from her, and listened to her babble about her birdies with apprehension. The bone in his palm seemed as eager to escape the apartment as him.

He made the long sneak back through the Abbey, past ominous music boxes and an Overseer reciting Strictures as his brother ran him through with his blade. Samuel was there with the boat in the dark, kept waiting too long because Corvo couldn't resist pursuing the Outsider's gifts.

Corvo dropped down heavily onto the bench in the back of the boat and asked Samuel to tell him about the whaling ships as they navigated back to the Hound Pits. He kept catching glimpses of blubbery hides in the water and strung up on whaling ships. The sight of such massive beasts branded and brought low made his stomach sink. Samuel didn't talk about killing the giants. He told Corvo of the sea, strange lights and faces in the water, and how life on a ship made a man part of the crew, more than himself, apart from himself - and all of the memories he wished to leave behind. They took an almost scenic route to the Hound Pits avoiding search lights on the river.


	3. Everything was fancy at the Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mission 3
> 
> Is it Coldridge, the Outsider, or grief warping dear Corvo?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: minor descriptions of violence, gore and sickness. Internal conflict is life.

A few days later, sickness pooled in his gut ruled his thoughts. He stepped back onto the docks south of Clavering Blvd. They were keeping Emily at the Golden Cat. The house of pleasures. No one would think to look there, it's true. Corvo still shook with rage as he walked towards Granny Rags's apartment. It was sealed, but the balcony would make a good platform to get to the rooftops. The old woman would have probably only encouraged his ferocious temper, anyway. Corvo didn't know how much provocation would be required - hence avoiding that new Watchtower and the Wall of Light. 

"Hey - isn't that the one Slackjaw is looking for?"

He Blinked without hesitation, hopping up to the grate above. A man called after him, and Corvo turned, planning to dart him and run. The Bottle Street thug had his sword sheathed. His bottle of explosives was still strapped to his hip. Corvo paused.

"Slackjaw's wanting to see ya," the thug called up, clearly shaken by his use of magic, but not enough to run. The Outsider seemed to breathe in his good ear, Mark itching distracting. Wary of a trap, he followed. If the message was death, he would be under attack already.

 

Everyone thought they could just send him on missions. The old lady, the Outsider, Bottle Street, even Havelock did not ask how he wanted to go rescue Emily. He didnt speak sign either though, Imperial or otherwise. Corvo felt he was genuine... Regardless, the way back into Galvani's was easily infiltrated. Slackjaw hadn't know who had poisoned his whiskey, but assumed it was whoever had killed his man. Corvo had killed at least one of the thugs of late, so he played along with the lie. Most who had fallen sick had been given bootleg elixir.

Crowley lay dead on a scientific slab in the room's centre. Corvo took his audiograph and what supplies Piero could use and was on his way. He wasn't carting a corpse out onto the sunny balcony.

The whalers ambushed him as he passed old man Gruff's lair. Their masks and blades tinted his vision red at the edges. They'd killed Jessamine. The assassin in the red coat, the rubber suited whalers. All of the rage he had suppressed at losing Emily too bubbled out uncontrollably.

This time, he had magic, too. He had the Outsider's favour. They had taken Emily. They had delivered her /there/. Corvo snarled and let one of them drag him close. Then, he slowed time, and sliced off his head. The other two sped back up again, crying out, and sprang into action. It was still a short fight.

He was out of magic afterwards, and the Bottle Street boys cringed back from the sight of his bloody form, but he felt better. His hacking had painted the Mark of the Outsider on his hand with blood. Corvo wiped it clean, thumb dragging over the inky lines. Three heads and their limbs surrounded him.

The thugs had seen him use his full skills now. They feared him properly. Good. They'd stay out of his way. In the distillery, he found a rooftop secluded enough to sit until it had sunk in that he had been killing too gladly this entire week. That first during his escape had changed something. It was all for Emily. She was all that mattered, yet he looked at posters of the Masked Felon and failed to feel complete remorse for his methods. She would have wanted him to. He played Slackjaw the audiograph and went on his way, wondering if he would take him up on sparing the Pendeltons.

Inside the Cat, there were all manner of men drinking, sleeping and celebrating the whore house's reopening. He stole the Madame's key first, and then hid in a chamber from guards as he sought out Curtis Pendleton. Inside was Bunting, the art dealer. Too convenient. That machine seemed awfully menacing. Bunting asked the lever, Corvo pulled. Again, and again, as such /intetesting/ things came out.

Who are you? What do you want?

He said nothing.

Please! Whatever you want!

He couldn't say anything. His tongue was still lead. Over the crackle of the machine, his mask now equipped with an amplifier in the right ear, he heard screams. Piero would need to improve the device.

Is this about the Brimsbeys? I visited them in the country. They worshipped the Outsider! (Corvo paused) I did it, too!

The lever flicked back into place. Corvo didn't touch it. There was no Mark on Bunting's hand. He tore open his shirt, to be sure. One of the whalers he had heard of in the Abbey had been Marked there. Nothing.

"Please," the small, frightened voice whispered. "Please, I'll do anything."

Corvo licked his lips, ear ringing disorientingly. He leaned forward, not trusting his mouth to work properly, after a year and a half. "The combination to your safe," he growled. It was easier than he remembered, once he began. He still hated it as much as before, but a masked man speaking sign was more obvious still. His voice cracked, Serkonan accent distorted by the metal teeth of his mask.

"My safe? 6-9-6. Take anything you want!"

Corvo took the strap from the old man's eyes. "Good. Now go, return to the Brimsbeys. Fall to your knees at their shrine and pray. Thank the Outsider that he sent his more merciful servant for you." Bunting whimpered, nodding furiously. Corvo showed him the Mark. "I am only merciful once. Do not return to the Cat while the Lord Regent is on the throne. I'll know."

\---

Women here were dressed like his Jessamine. Corvo fought the sickness down. He had done enough evil these past days without taking out his misery on whores. Bunting had his life. Likewise, so would the twins below. He was following the Heart to Emily. Jessamine didn't seem to recognize her girl anymore, except in that all knowing way that she knew all men. He hadn't dared show her himself in the mirror.

Emily threw herself into his arms, just like the say of their last reunion. He held her tight and wept in her hair. He went back to his signing, for the moment. His first words shouldn't have been to a merchant whore peddler, nor could he find the heart to voice just how happy he was to have her safe again. There would be time for that at the Hound Pits. There hadn't been time for Jessamine, not even with the Heart. He ignored the lurch in his chest and scooped her up.

They took the back door from the Cat, the one Pendleton likely used on his visits. Granny Rags, with the promises of stories and safety from her 'birdies,' offered to lead Emily through the Weepers and back to the boat. Corvo squeezed her hand, but the child seemed so sure when she hopped down to her feet... He could never deny her anything... And he still had work to do. Avoiding taking her past the whaler corpses was a good thing, he told himself.

Corvo Blinked up to a street lamp avoiding the stench and eyesight of the Weepers both. He didn't know what his princess would say of him using black magic. She would certainly know he had become a witch. Concealing his power from her irked him. Emily had never shied from his demons before. Letting her leave with Rags irked him more. He watched the old woman lead her under Galvani's, ready to rejoin them at an instant's notice, but taken with the urge to watch, as if he would miss something important.

His stomach lurched. His vision distorted. Whales shrieked in his ear in pain. Emily stood beyond the Wall of Light. Corvo magnified his mask lense. The Watchtower above her was sputtering uncertainly, firing in the wrong direction all together. Bullets sprayed the water. Emily looked stunned only a moment before Rags's voice floated through his distorted hearing.

White beams he recalled clutching him that awful day clung to the Watchtower now. No sooner had Emily disappeared off of Clavering and down to the beach did they lash out and turn on the guards around the Tower instead. Corvo ripped off the mask at the sight of a slight old woman ripping her way through the guards in a flurry of ash and rats.

/Be careful, Corvo./

The words were clearer than his own thoughts. Corvo wiped his mouth and donned the mask. He ran to the boat and made sure Samuel and Emily were unscathed. Samuel was cautiously avoiding saying adult things to her, but always correcting himself and referring to her by words that sounded formal enough for an Empress, but weren't really proper words. Amusing as it was, relieving as it was, and as much as he wanted to take her back to the Hound Pits in his arms, the shaking in his hands was going nowhere. That storm Granny Rags had torn through the square... He had looked like that when fighting the whalers, when escaping from Coldridge and letting that bomb incinerate unconscious guards. That wasn't what he wanted to be. How else could he have saved her, if he hadn't taken lives? There was... Always another way, right?

Past the cobblestones littered in pieces of bodies, he returned to Slackjaw with the combination. He asked to go with him to the dealer's safe, brief and coarse. Twice today, he had broken his silence, for strangers. He yearned for the humming of the Void to give him certainty. He always knew what he wanted when black eyes inspected his soul. The Outsider was silent, watching his Marked children dance around one another, sowing chaos. Corvo didn't want any of this. He had her back. This could end soon.

He took the Rune in Bunting's safe and his invitation to the Boyles' masquerade. The man had an appointment to keep with the Brimsbeys. Slackjaw gave him all of the elixir. They had their own stills. Other trinkets found their way into his pockets as he ghosted past, glad that the boss had been there to keep his men from turning on him. They looked decidedly less tolerant of his presence now. He said nothing of the attack outside the Wall of Light. The gang would find it soon enough. They would think he had done it. The legend darkened at every turn. At least she hadn't slain any thugs - he thought. This was a dangerous street to cross. He wouldn't be able to feel safe on Bottle Street until Rags was dealt with. Corvo walked the rooftops back to the boat, avoiding the sights below.


	4. At first, it was a game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mission 4  
> Exploring Corvo's faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time lines shall be manipulated for my benefit, but I hope you like.  
> Warnings for alcoholism. Darker themes are coming.

Emily pierced whoever she spoke to now with her eyes. She looked them straight on, challenging and petulant. Those browns softened for him, every time, but even Corvo couldn't reign in her headstrong ways anymore. She hid from Callista and spoke back to Lord Pendleton, challenged Wallace's elitism with cold eyes, but she rode on Samuel's shoulders and made wire whales under Piero's gaze. She asked Cecilia to sneak her sweets. He suspected that it made her day to be seen and spoken to. Her clumsy curtsy didn't convey that gratitude very well.

He woke to her in his room. You were making funny faces in your sleep again, her lips formed. He'd been dreaming of nothing in particular. The Void stood out clearly in his mind when he dreamt of it on rare occasion. This was a dream about the Void, but not in it. Corvo sat up sleepily. He had fewer nightmares than she.

He signed that she was always welcome. Emily was precious, and all that was left of her mother. Even if she weren't, he adored her. He pulled his shirt on, still groggy. Emily had taken up a seat on discarded sheets, reading something from Havelock's library. The Admiral never would have loaned a child one of his volumes on naval warfare, but Emily had a nose for source material on piracy.

He kissed the top of her head before grabbing his weapons, only Corvo the Protector for a moment, rather than conspirator and assassin. Emily didn't flinch from his touch, as everyone seemed to from one another in these times.

Below, Cecilia was troubled by one thing or another as she washed the linens. Her hands were bright red from hard work and poor circulation. Treavor had left him a note regarding his brothers some time ago, but hadn't stopped drinking since. Wallace had started shamefully watering his wines down. An insult to the vintage, he would say, and to Lord Pendleton, but necessary, he feared. Corvo wondered if Wallace admired him so much, or if it was love. The Abbey would disapprove. Lately, it seemed to Corvo, that meant it would usually please him.

The witch made by circumstance joined Havelock and Martin in the Pub. They had been waiting for Sokolov to go to his residence on Kaldwin, away from the Tower, for some days now. He had been glad for the chance to rest and play with his princess. They wouldn't have called him unless there was news. He sat next to Martin, the Mark on his hand agitated near an Overseer - even one who bent the rules like Teague Martin. Most of them visited the Cat and other brothels during the Fugue Feast and drank themselves stupid like any other man. Martin was more honest about his sins. Corvo had yet to find an appropriate way to thank him for his escape plans. Maybe freeing him in return seemed to be enough, but Corvo wanted to do more.

Lydia brought him a hot mug of tea. They had run out of wine a day ago, and the beer wasn't far behind now that Treavor had turned on it. The whiskey was being hidden away by the others. No one drank in front of him anymore. Corvo wondered often if he was still doing any good here, too drunk to see straight. Then again, Slackjaw had cut out their tongues and put them to work in dying silver mines they themselves owned. The Pendleton funds wouldn't last the year unless Treavor could recover himself. The effects of his actions were bleeding into those around him. Corvo wanted to find a shrine. He hadn't seen the Void in his dreams since the first appearance the Outsider had made.

Martin walked him to the dock, patient as he picked up his supply order from Piero. "You haven't been studying the forbidden arts, have you?" Corvo clenched his fist. The need to defend his faith, who he worshipped, felt absurd and out of the blue, but he couldn't deny that he had taken the gifts to heart now. He nodded. A hand patted his shoulder.

"Relax. We're all friends here. I just - have questions. Would you tell me about him?" Surprised, and slowly coming to hope that Martin was genuine in his curiosity, he sat on the stairs to the dock. Samuel wasn't ready yet. He chose his signs carefully.

 _Curious,_ was the first thing he said. _He's a watcher, not some insatiable_ (Martin didn't know that word. He chose hungry instead) _\- some hungry beast with no regard for us. You only receive His gifts if you're going to use them for something interesting._ (A thought occurred to him, already spilling off of his fingers in slow patterns,) _The Outsider is what we make of Him. He doesn't impose His will on us - but lets us be more of what we already are._

Martin was sitting across from him, making a barricade on the stairs with their knees. "He's your god, yet he gives you no commands?"

Who else was worth worshipping, he wondered. Perhaps Corvo had always needed someone to adore. Jessamine he had loved as his Queen, Empress over so many, mother to Emily - she had been the pillar of strength he had sought to emulate and protect. Loving her, even when they had been... More... Was nothing like loving the Void.

_He commands I be true to my heart, I think._


	5. Rituals beneath the Abbey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convictions are shaken. Brick by brick the foundation for the future begins to set itself into stone.  
> Mission 4 Pt 1

It took incredible timing. Impatient, Corvo had nearly botched sneaking into Kaldwin's Bridge. An exploding lantern in the square centre drew the guards long enough to jump and Blink to the door. His heart stuttered when it creaked, but none of them turned quickly enough to see him slide past the threshold.

He zapped himself on the tracks painfully, but it was the quickest path across the area - until the Heart thumped in his coat and whispered of Runes nearby and he recalled how much he had needed to find a shrine that morning. Corvo converted to his Dark Vision. It stayed on through most of his stealthing until he felt It. Without the Heart's prompting, the singing came to him from nearby.

The shrine was occupied by a mad, raving man. Corvo still apologized as his arm cinched around his neck and constricted the way he had promised to teach Emily long ago. The body struggled so long that he fear he would kill the man.

When he slumped at last, Corvo turned to the shrine he hadn't been able to look on before. Notes around the room spoke of how one of His bone charms had driven this man from his senses. Stealth, healing and adrenaline charms were tied to Corvo's chest. He didn't feel any more mad and distrustful than usual yet.

He took the Rune still standing tall on his feet. The Void snapped into place around him like a storm, and Corvo bowed down under its sudden weight. Regardless of the immobilizing nature of the presence, he was still glad to see the Leviathan solidify from shadow into man. The Outsider had much to say of his shrine's resting place. Corvo didn't have the nerve to interrupt the floating apparition of the Void.

His skin bristled being told he was interesting, and it occurred to Corvo that he had been doing the same thing as Sokolov. He had come to these shrines in the hopes of Him appearing, and performed acts in His name - but while the Outsider called him fascinating, He thought of Sokolov's acts as disgusting. Given all of the death he had brought to this city, he wondered where the line was. What would it take to lose this place of honour in His attentions? Who would he become when that line was found?

Black eyes bore into him, daring him to speak those doubts out loud. It occurred to Corvo that this dialogue had always been one-sided. He'd never been given occasion to answer the Leviathan, and the Outsider had always focused past his reactions to distorted divinity, which had to be normal parts of visiting a new believer, in favour of commenting on what he found of highest interest. Frequently, this had little to do with Corvo at all, or tangentially connected to his current mission. An ear bent to His whim. Perhaps the Outsider did not care to hear his thoughts, yet He inspired so many.

_If I prayed, would you hear me?_ He asked. Would you listen, he meant.

Amused eyes lit brightly as the Outsider bent forward at the waist towards him. "Oh, Corvo," the Void readied to draw away, and there was something in His eyes Corvo had never seen before. "You already do."


	6. Most clearly in a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is it that makes Sokolov so boring to the Outsider?  
> 

Corvo was left with his questions unanswered. The shrine's lights dimmed even as the world took on colour again and golden sunset filtered over the fine drapes. He understood how so many of His worshippers went mad. Corvo usually left these meetings more sure of himself and his intended course. This visit had left him only more confused.

Cities fell, and bridges burned, and the Outsider was cryptic and watchful. A thousand years from now, in a new city on these stones, would another be Marked and Chosen? Only if they and their times held enough interest, he supposed. Perhaps the Outsider would become bored of them all and call the waves up from the sea, and in a thousand years, these rocks would bear coral instead of cobblestone roads.

He went on his way again.

Through trial and error, he spied on the Sokolov 'apartments'. In truth, it resembled a waterfront manor, full of laboratory equipment and large rectangles in his Dark Vision that Corvo assumed were maps, as he had found before. Bodies of the living and the dead were hunched in various poses on each floor.

It still was foreign to him, to think first of taking the rooftops as his path, but the Walls of Light were heavily guarded. A moment of terror had passed through him while sneaking in. Hidden inside of a rat, his magic failed him. He was hardly in the door when ugly clangs of metal reached his ears and he was ejected from the rat. Corvo stumbled into his human form again, ready to retch up his breakfast. The music was dissonant and made his palm go numb. It crept up his arm, too, and a great pressure filled his head. When dizziness washed over him and his nose began to bleed, he retreated with haste. An officer shouted as he burst from the door and done from the balcony.

Muggy water rushed into his ears, like it had at Coldridge. There were gunshots piercing the water, but his fingers had feeling again. Beneath the water, he Blinked, and hurtled past hagfish. He crawled over a pod that would grow into River Krust colonies one day and up the far side of the bridge again. He removed the mask to save the gears from water damage and pour the river from his ears.

Later, when he was eavesdropping on the guards, they were reporting that the intruder, though no one knew how he had broken in, had been shot. They swore his body had been eaten by hagfish. One of them presented a bone charm from his coat to the Overseer with his box. His heart wrenched angrily. They would crush the charm with vices or grind it to powder. He vowed to return for it after he had the Royal Physician.

His skulking lead him to spotting the unguarded terrace walkway above. By sheer luck, it was within reach of his magic. When the Overseer was as far as possible from that area of the manor, examining what he had only glimpsed as being massive stone rectangles, Corvo Blinked across.

Subduing Sokolov was pathetically easy. He bore him across the roofs to Samuel's boat, but the work was not yet done. He had an Overseer to attend to. Corvo darted the officer at the door from across the way, and waited for his subordinates to come running. With them all gathering around the unconscious body, afraid and angry, it was exceptionally easy to slow time and make the Blink-and-run dash to the inside. He did not look about, except to note that a painting of a white-clothed woman stood amidst those blocks in the main hall. Not a map, after all, but a rather - suggestive portrait. It curdled his stomach, well aware that Sokolov had appetites. He was here only for his charm, and time had resume as normal. The moment that cranking box started up, he would have no magic, and his reserves were only just refilling.

The charm was locked up in the office below Sokolov laboratory. It was the only room free of human bodies, though vivisected rats, pigeons and preserved whale meat littered the counter spaces. Corvo was beginning to understand what might be part of his God's disdain for Sokolov. It was not his research or his interest, or even his methods (He seemed equally amused with Corvo's violence as his restraint), but the air with which they were done. A cruelty, a boredom that didn't fit simply into words. It might even remind the Outsider of Himself. It made Corvo cringe and make a swift retreat, charm fastened to his chest once more. The music box ground to life behind him, only a twinge in his skin now.

Docking at the Hound Pits Pub, Corvo left Havelock to take care of the Royal Physician. Between Wallace and Samuel, they'd have no troubles getting the heavy body into the kennels. He needed sleep. He knew that he should at least say hello to his princess first, but he that music box had been so draining.

Corvo wanted to fall into the Void and wake to black eyes and a soothing voice that had done nothing but confuse him on their last meeting. He would tell the Outsider about Martin's questions and Emily's nightmares. His insides twisted uncomfortably as the suggestion niggled in the back of his mind that what he felt for Him wasn't natural. Corvo pushed it aside with some trouble. His devotion wasn't natural at all, according to the Abbey, and he still chose to embrace it. Whatever else was in his heart would follow suit. That shouldn't be a concern.

When sleep did come, he was woken by a hot puff of air on his neck. Corvo closed his hand around the intruder in his bed, and his tired eyes opened to little Emily curled up beneath his arm. She was still wearing her black little shoes. The toes scuffed at his calf. With a sigh, he sat up and unbuckled them for her.

"Corvo?" her voice was laced with sleep and worry. One shoe, then the other. Too dark to sign, he swallowed and found his voice.

"Go back to sleep, Emily."

"You're not leaving, are you?"

Corvo tucked the blanket first over her shoulder, then his own.

"No. Just sleep."

 

Interrogating Sokolov was a farce. Farley had no more idea how to pose a question than how to handle Emily's burning inquiries at breakfast. Corvo listened to them talking each other in circles, wary of the crate in the corner, squirming with plague rats. The Heart whispered what he already knew from Galvani's notes. _They came here by boat to advance ambition. Now, they chew their master's very foundations away._

Sokov turned on him next, beady eyes narrow with accusation. He flexed his fingers. The high and mighty Physician who tortured healthy subjects with the plague to find a cure thought that a few assassinations was beneath him? Laughable to most, but it made a twisted kind of sense to Corvo. In the end, they both wanted to save lives.

Perhaps there was a way to bribe Sokolov. The day he had returned to the Isle of Gristol, Corvo had watched him painting High Overseer Campbell. The grumpy painter had hissed at him for touching the bottle of brandy on his side table. Said it was needed to detract from how awful a visages he was being forced to paint. Such bottles had been hidden at the Kaldwin's Bridge apartments. Corvo uttered quiet, rusty words to Havelock to be patient. The Admiral hid it well, but he was still uncomfortable with the assassin and his odd speaking habits.

Corvo didn't have the patience to accommodate him presently. At least he had stopped wearing that pistol of his strapped to his chest all day. Aside from range exercises, Corvo had not seen the weapon most of the week. Cecilia was glad for that. She always worried that the gunshots would bring the city watch down on them. It was a show of confidence not just for Havelock to be shooting in a quarantined district, but for him to trust his conspirators enough to stow it away at times. Maybe he just expected Corvo had already handled everyone capable of harming them. It was a wonder they feared so much, but never cowered from him. He made most of them anxious, except for Samuel and Lydia. It was better than fear. Corvo was coming to like the Hound Pits and the Loyalists. It was more hospitable than any other shelter afforded in the city these days.

He needed a bribe from the black market. That meant tracking down Piero, but the workshop gate was lowered and barred. He'd never seen the eccentric craftsman venturing out. Most often, someone had to bring him his meals, or he'd forget them entirely. His spindly limbs were testament not so much to the food stores of the Pub but to that focus he had for his work that drove him to forget his bodily needs. So where had he gone?

The answer was unpleasant. He stood with arms crossed behind Piero, observing that single-track mind of his apply itself to far less scrupulous than his killing machines. He didn't know who was in the bath behind that door, but they were lucky he didn't shove Joplin in there to make his apologies presently. Corvo hauled him to his feet.

When Piero finally stopped cowering and lying, he began sounding more contrite. Corvo didn't have to make any threats. Promises to stop came all on their own. No more snowflake tumblers, spying or indiscretions. Corvo still scowled as the topic turned hastily to Sokolov. Piero happened to have a bottle of the rare drink Sokolov favoured. Corvo didn't buy that as coincidence, not with the Pits being aware of his targets. He bought it anyway, for much less than he had expected. A family with money in Dunwall would still pay through the nose for Kingstreet Brandy.

Corvo took a swig on the walk back to the kennels. It was vile, as Piero promised. He could smell the whale oil, even in such small amounts. He dangled the bottle in front of the bars before Sokolov, faintly aware of Lord Pendleton watching it swing from his place in the doorway. The greedy way Sokolov snatched it aged him a great deal. Nothing like Corvo's Outsider after all.


End file.
